Scaling the “Heights”

A look at the some of the people and places that figure prominently in the musical:

Washington Heights: An ethnically and culturally diverse neighborhood in Upper Manhattan that serves as the musical’s inspiration and setting.

Usnavi: The show’s central character — a young bodega owner whose late parents emigrated with him from the Dominican Republic. (His father adapted the name from a passing ship bearing the words “U.S. Navy.”)

No me diga: A Spanish phrase that means, essentially, “You don’t say!” (Or maybe more accurately: “No way!”) It doubles as the title of a gossipy song performed by three of the show’s women.

Inutil: Another Spanish word, meaning “useless.” It serves as the title of a number sung by the father of the character Nina. (Local angle: The song served as an inspiration for “Star Trek” icon George Takei to launch what became the Old Globe Theatre-developed musical “Allegiance,” which is partly an ode of gratitude to Takei’s own father.)

Piragua: A Puerto Rican shaved-ice treat that’s a favorite of the sweltering characters in the show.

For not quite the 96,000th time, the cast of San Diego Rep’s “In the Heights” is powering through the propulsive musical number “96,000” on a recent afternoon at the theater’s Chula Vista rehearsal hall.

In between takes, some of the actors — clearly gassed by the show’s athletic choreography — sprawl on the floor or rub aching muscles.

But at the center of the ensemble, Jai Rodriguez is looking poised, primed and ready to roll.

It may be true that the title of “96,000” — one of the signature songs from the Tony Award-winning, hip-hop-inflected musical, set in Manhattan’s ethnically diverse Washington Heights — refers to the dollars in a lottery pot.

To hear Rodriguez tell it, though, it’s just possible this stage and television star has 96,000 reasons to be part of the Rep production.

“Being Latino, coming from New York — living in Washington Heights for a good portion of my adult life,” Rodriguez begins, ticking off some of the show’s main attractions for him.

“I felt like I knew these people. The characters weren’t fictitious to me. I could literally say, ‘That one’s Jonathan, that one’s so and so.’ All the jokes that were sort of inside New York jokes, that now have been broadened to sort of appeal to the masses, I understood.

“(So) in many ways I didn’t feel I was very different from the character” — meaning Usnavi, the young, Dominican-born bodega owner at the center of “In the Heights.”

“He is kind of looking for a sense of home and belonging. He lost his parents and was raised by this grandmother figure. Same with me: I was raised primarily by my grandmother.”